Pod Insights Pablo Torre Finds Out Mission, Possible: The Otherworldly Optimism of Senator Mark Kelly About this episode He was an astronaut. Then his wife, Rep. Gabby Giffords, survived an act of political gun violence. Now, he's a U. S. Senator tinkering his way around the "stupid sh*t" inside Washington's machine. Can Mark Kelly convince his colleagues to look past corporate money in order to save lives? And could Charlie Kirk's killing lead to progress? Also: twins with mustaches, a first date on death row, an accidental Obama nickname... and the correct pronunciation of acetaminophen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript 9,606 words · 17 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Pablo Torre? Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is.
0:06 Speaker 01 If you're a child in the United States, the most likely reason you are going to lose your life is you're going to get shot.
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2:24 Pablo Torre? The podcast is largely gonna be Senator Mark Kelly watching us try to fix a chair.
2:29 Speaker 01 Fixed.
2:29 Pablo Torre? There it is. Amazing. Um, are we rolling? Can we, can we just make sure? Yep, very good. Awesome. Let's keep the chair, keep the chair engineering part in. Help him with that side.
2:41 Speaker 01 All right.
2:44 Pablo Torre? This side?
2:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, I got it.
2:46 Pablo Torre? There's just a little bit. There it is.
2:47 Speaker 01 Oh, okay. It'll just look like [BLEEP].
2:50 Pablo Torre? I just like how I'm advising the astronaut. Look, your headset's a bit off. Your headset's just, I don't know if you've been familiar with how to wear this complicated engineering.
3:01 Speaker 01 I've worn a lot of complicated engineering.
3:05 Speaker 01 My phone on airplane mode.
3:07 Pablo Torre? Let me do that, too.
3:08 Speaker 01 Camera there.
3:09 Pablo Torre? Camera there, but just look at me. And we have multiple angles and we'll clean up as we need to.
3:14 Speaker 01 I always like, um, doing these with the headsets on and the audio sounds good.
3:19 Pablo Torre? I agree. Um, you brought a notebook.
3:22 Speaker 01 I did, but I'm not gonna use it. I just had it.
3:26 Pablo Torre? You're just peacocking with your...
3:27 Speaker 01 I just, I just, you know, I'll fidget with a pen, maybe. I don't need it.
3:33 Pablo Torre? Well, I was, I was gonna ask. I've had people in this chair who are notebook people. Is that something that you use to organize your thoughts? It is a psychological crutch, Senator. Why do you carry that around?
3:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, sometimes I, I don't take a lot of notes, but I do in meetings and stuff that I could later, you know, go to my staff and say, hey, we need to do, you know, these few things. It also sometimes helps me pay attention.
3:58 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
3:59 Speaker 01 You know, when I'm trying to take, you know, notes in like long, if you got a lot, a lot of meetings, long day. Uh, and I have a bunch of them. Like, I have a stack of them now from being in this job for five years, about that, you know, about like a foot and a half high.
4:14 Pablo Torre? How many, how many of those are just doodles?
4:16 Speaker 01 Uh, I don't have many doodles in here, but I do have, I do have sometimes like quotes, like people say stupid things.
4:23 Pablo Torre? Yeah. I want that. I want, I want Mark Kelly's log of stupid [BLEEP] people have said to him.
4:28 Speaker 01 Stupid [BLEEP], like, you know, people in the, in the Senate sometimes say. You know, I got in here like talk to our governor about a road that needs to be open like up by the Grand Canyon. Would be an example of like these businesses are struggling.
4:42 Pablo Torre? Right.
4:42 Speaker 01 And because of the fire on the North Rim and I talked to these business owners and about talking to like, you know, the governor about some of these issues.
4:51 Pablo Torre? The degree of just like stuff that your brain needs to manage. In your capacity now as Senator, and by the way, I'm gonna call you Senator, not captive.
5:00 Speaker 01 Call me anything.
5:01 Pablo Torre? All right, Mark.
5:03 Speaker 01 That's fine. That's the thing about this job that. I mean, I obviously expected it, but in my previous jobs, whether you know, if I'm flying airplanes in the Navy off of an aircraft carrier. Right, I got basically one thing I need to know how to do well. And then later as a test pilot, bigger world of aerospace engineering and evaluation of airplanes and. You know, understanding a lot of technical stuff and then as an astronaut, you know, science engineering, the operation of a very complex machine. But then you get to the Senate and it's like every issue that you could possibly face in the world is part of your job.
5:47 Pablo Torre? A complex machine of a different kind.
5:49 Speaker 01 It's like all the machines. It's like all the things, all the issues, all the time now. It's like anybody can ask you a question about any issue at any time.
5:58 Pablo Torre? Right. That's why I consider it very dangerous for you to be here. You're an authority allegedly on so many things and I could ask you anything and the first question I have for you. Where the [bleep] did your mustache go?
6:13 Speaker 01 That's a good question.
6:14 Pablo Torre? You used to have a mustache.
6:15 Speaker 01 For a long time. You know, it's in the Navy as a pilot in the Navy, that's kind of what you do, right? You get them, you're in your twenties, in your flying cool airplanes and then everybody gets a mustache. So I got the mustache, my brother got the mustache. And then in 1996, we both were selected to be astronauts. So now we're working in the same office with all these people at NASA. And we're identical twins.
6:40 Pablo Torre? I was gonna say, it's very funny and confusing to imagine Scott Kelly, Captain Scott Kelly and Captain Mark Kelly.
6:49 Speaker 01 And they look the same.
6:50 Pablo Torre? Identical twins.
6:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, so the problem that that presented was every day at work, and we lived this as kids. But then we kind of separated for a while and then we're back together. We're at NASA, at the Johnson Space Center, in the astronaut office. And every single day, somebody would call me Scott. And somebody would call him Mark. And you'd have to correct him. And it gets really annoying. So my brother eventually said, well, the hell with this. Shaved off his mustache.
7:19 Pablo Torre? Oh.
7:20 Speaker 01 To differentiate ourselves. So we didn't have to deal with that anymore. And that went on from about 1997 to after I left NASA. But then, when my brother was getting ready to go into space for a year in 2016, I was like, now's my opportunity here. And I was actually trying to mess with people. Because so on the day he went to launch, I shaved my mustache off. So people would think that maybe that was me that went into space for a year. And then he stayed on Earth. So that was the moment on his launch date for a year in space in 2016. I shaved mine off.
8:05 Speaker 01 And I was like, eh, I'll just leave it.
8:06 Pablo Torre? Just to clarify, though, basically what you're saying is your brother went to space, left the Earth in your care, and you decided to immediately just start pranking.
8:19 Speaker 01 That was the goal, but nobody fell for it.
8:21 Pablo Torre? You're grown up, identical twins. Your parents did what?
8:25 Speaker 01 They were both police officers in New Jersey.
8:27 Pablo Torre? Right.
8:28 Speaker 01 30 minutes from here, West Orange.
8:30 Pablo Torre? West Orange, okay. So West Orange's finest are trying to solve one of their great-
8:35 Speaker 01 Thomas Edison had his factory in West Orange. So don't get-
8:39 Pablo Torre? Hey.
8:39 Speaker 01 About the finest thing.
8:41 Pablo Torre? As someone who was born and raised and remains forever a New York elitist, I can only look down my nose at the struggle that your parents had in discerning you and your brother, which is which.
8:56 Speaker 01 I was the original. And my brother was the cheap copy six minutes later.
9:01 Pablo Torre? Yeah, many are saying.
9:02 Speaker 01 That's what, that's what they say.
9:03 Pablo Torre? Now, the whole notion of, hey, you've done this in the time that you guys almost Freaky Friday'd the International Space Station.
9:15 Speaker 01 Right.
9:15 Pablo Torre? Your brother thinks what of your station in life? What does he think of you being in politics? What does he think of you being this guy now?
9:26 Speaker 01 I never asked him. I think he's glad I'm in this job. And I think he believes that I bring a certain kind of thought process to the, to government that not everybody has. How many engineers?
9:40 Pablo Torre? I was gonna ask.
9:42 Speaker 01 In like, the senate out of a hundred people, there are, I think there are three engineers. Me, I have a master's degree in aeronautical engineering, undergrad in marine engineering, which is like power plant engineering. Alex Padilla has a bachelor's degree, I think, in aeronautical engineering. And Martin Heinrich, who is a mechanical engineer. That's it, as far as I know.
10:05 Pablo Torre? It feels like in your notebook, there's a list of people who know what the [bleep] science is. And it's not a very long list.
10:12 Speaker 01 Not a long list.
10:13 Pablo Torre? Those in Congress that makes these decisions that impact every single American's life.
10:19 Speaker 01 There've been a number of times where I've listened to some of my colleagues and I'm like, man, you guys, you have no idea what's going on with this. You don't know what you're talking about.
10:31 Speaker 01 That's happened. Not gonna tell you who.
10:33 Pablo Torre? Yeah, no, I was gonna say, I've been hearing people try to pronounce acetaminophen this week. And I'm like, I don't know if this is gonna go great.
10:40 Speaker 05 First, effective immediately, the FDA will be notifying physicians at the use of acetaminophen. Well, let's see how we say that. Acetaminophen. Acetaminophen. Is that okay?
10:58 Speaker 05 Which is basically commonly known as Tylenol during pregnancy can be associated with a very increased risk of autism.
11:10 Pablo Torre? Donald Trump Finds Out is a very different podcast. It is full of revelations every single day.
11:16 Speaker 01 I think you gotta, you either believe in science and you listen to scientists and you rely on solid scientific research. You shouldn't really pick and choose and you shouldn't go with your feelings. I think the president said, well, I feel like this is like the right thing to do. That's not the answer.
11:36 Speaker 05 The MMR, I think should be taken separately. This is based on what I feel.
11:41 Speaker 01 Science doesn't care if you don't believe in science. It's still a real thing, right? So it's good to put, you know, good researchers on problems, you know, look at things for an extended period of time, have a big cohort that is part of your experiment and then follow the data. I've seen from this administration, A, they don't really care about the science and the data. And that's, that's dangerous. I think that's gonna hurt some people, especially like with things like vaccines.
12:16 Pablo Torre? Well, I, I think that the scientific method, a big part of it, in my understanding, is that when you don't like the data, you just fire the person who collects the data.
12:24 Speaker 01 And you hire somebody who's not a scientist to run our entire health system.
12:28 Pablo Torre? No.
12:29 Speaker 01 Or not a medical doctor, not a scientist, let's just get like a guy.
12:32 Pablo Torre? A nation of guys. That's what it says. I believe in our, in our constitution.
12:55 Pablo Torre? How did you and your wife, Representative Gabby Giffords, how did you guys meet?
12:59 Speaker 01 We met on a trip to China. About 20 years ago, 22 years ago, something like that. It was a, like a young leaders forum, bunch of people from the United States, bunch from China. And the whole idea is find some mid-career people. On our side, it was some folks in government or the military, folks from business, the arts. Guy named Damian Wetzel, who runs Juilliard, who was a ballet dancer, was part of our group. Architect that I was out to dinner with last night. Greg Pascarelli, who runs an architecture firm called Shop. But this was over 20 years ago. She was a state senator, I was an astronaut.
13:44 Speaker 01 And then similar people on the Chinese side. And it's kind of trying to build some, you know, relationships.
13:51 Pablo Torre? And in the, in the movie of your meet cute, is it electric?
13:59 Speaker 01 I mean, it was actually the second trip a year later that Gabby asked me to go on a date.
14:05 Pablo Torre? She asked you?
14:06 Speaker 01 She asked me on a date.
14:07 Pablo Torre? What's up with that, Captain?
14:09 Speaker 01 Our first date was the Florence State Prison Death Row. She said she needed somebody to come with her halfway between Tucson and Phoenix. And I, and she said, nobody really wants to go with me to visit Death Row. And I'm like, I'm in. Sounds cool. So that was our, that was our first date.
14:33 Pablo Torre? Did you know it was a date?
14:35 Speaker 01 I did not, I found out later. She, she didn't tell me that until later. She, she had an angle.
14:43 Pablo Torre? So I'm getting a very sharp picture of what your dynamic is like already.
14:49 Speaker 01 Right.
14:51 Pablo Torre? I have her as the person who is frankly, taking a leadership role. And you are a coward so far in this story.
14:59 Speaker 01 She was the one who like, you know, wanted to get to know each other a little bit better and no better place, right, than a, than a prison.
15:06 Pablo Torre? I mean, you guys presumably, you stay in touch, you go on actual dates that are mutually disclosed.
15:10 Speaker 01 We did, like, we went to dinner that night and then, you know, and then after that, it was, I'd want to see her every couple of weeks for a while and. Then I would say probably six months in, it was like kind of a real relationship.
15:23 Pablo Torre? Right. I mean, just for those who are unfamiliar with Gabby Gifford's and her political trajectory.
15:28 Speaker 01 Right.
15:29 Pablo Torre? This is a supernova in American politics.
15:34 Speaker 06 This is a victory for all of us tonight.
15:38 Speaker 06 Not just the Democrats, but the independents, the Republicans, the Greens, the Libertarians, and the Vegetarians. I want to thank each and every one of you.
15:59 Speaker 06 There were so many people at the base tonight. My fiance, Mark Kelly, my parents.
16:06 Speaker 01 Yeah, there was a, there was a magazine and there was a, she had this whole page talking about her. She ran her family's tire and automotive business. She was in the State House. Now she's in the State Senate. Maybe someday she'll run for Congress. And in the corner, in the lower left or right corner, there was another little article about a state senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, on the same page.
16:34 Pablo Torre? But like the smaller real estate?
16:36 Speaker 01 The smaller. Oh, yeah. He got the little, he got the little corner. She had the whole page.
16:39 Pablo Torre? Also receiving votes.
16:40 Speaker 01 Yes. She got the whole page. He got the little, he got the little corner.
16:45 Pablo Torre? And so the date, for people who don't know, was January 8th, 2011. And you, that day, were where, doing what?
16:57 Speaker 01 I was in Houston, Texas. It was a Saturday morning. I was training for what was going to be my fourth space shuttle mission, my second mission as the commander. It was also going to be the last flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour, which is a pretty big deal to get picked for one of the last shuttle flights.
17:17 Pablo Torre? You know, it's kind of sad the space shuttle's going to be retired. You know, it's an incredibly, an incredible vehicle. I mean, there's never been anything like it.
17:26 Speaker 01 So it was a Saturday morning. I was at home with my kids, Claudia and Claire, and I was talking to Claudia about something, some dude. And I get a call from Gabby's chief of staff. And I pick up the phone and she says, Mark, I don't know how to tell you this, but Gabby's been shot.
17:51 Speaker 07 Updating our top story now, a gunman shot Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and several others today at an outdoor event in Tucson, Arizona. Congresswoman Giffords is a Democrat, just beginning her third term in the House. She is 40 years old and the wife of astronaut Mark Kelly.
18:10 Speaker 01 And the immediate thing that goes through my head is, okay, what do we do now? She's probably like shot in the arm or the shoulder or something was, what was running through, through my mind. She didn't have much information. We hung up. I put the phone down at a pool table in, in the house. I remember putting it on the pool table and then a few minutes later, I thought to myself, did I really just get that call? And I walked back over and I pick up the phone to see that I had this incoming call. I was like, this is like crazy. And then either she called me back or I called her back. It's disputed, you know, after all these years, I'm not sure.
18:55 Speaker 01 But then we, when I spoke to her again, a few minutes later, she says, okay, she's been shot in the head. And that is really like the gut punch, much more significant. Now you know, at that moment, that both of our lives have changed forever.
19:15 Speaker 08 We've got multiple, multiple, multiple calls. They have not called us for assistance. I'm assuming they're quite 10-6 at this point. We've been informed Gabrielle Giffords is involved. Multiple parties out on the sidewalk. I believe I'm hearing county rolling up right now.
19:31 Speaker 01 And then I have to figure out how, how am I going to get to Tucson in a hurry at a friend with a private airplane so we get, eventually like an hour later, I'm on his airplane and the airplane had TV on, we're flying to Tucson. And then CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, all pronounce her dead.
19:52 Speaker 09 Hello, I'm Martin Savage, CNN Center in Atlanta. We are following breaking news coming out of Tucson, Arizona.
19:57 Speaker 10 Jamie, I have one very reliable source on Capitol Hill confirming that Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has died.
20:05 Speaker 01 I just, I mean, it is just so devastating. Like, your world is just crumbled. And I go into the bathroom. My kids say that's the first time they've ever seen me, like, really shaken and broken up. And I got up and walked into the bathroom. And then thirty minutes later...
20:25 Speaker 11 Is anybody injured? Did you say Gabrielle Gifford was hit? Um, she's hit. Okay. She's breathing. She was breathing.
20:34 Speaker 01 They say, "Nope, made a mistake. She's still alive."
20:40 Pablo Torre? Can you explain what it feels like to be told via every national news network that your wife has been killed, only to then discover...
20:50 Speaker 01 Yeah, you don't know, right? And you're, you know, you're still stuck on an airplane. You got an hour flight. You gotta land, you gotta get there. And it wasn't until I got into the hospital, into the room with the trauma surgeon, this guy named Peter Rees, former Navy trauma surgeon, but he said something like, "I'm not going to allow her to die." He's that kind of doctor.
21:11 Pablo Torre? That's what I would like...
21:12 Speaker 01 That's what you like.
21:13 Pablo Torre? My spouse's doctor to tell me.
21:15 Speaker 01 Yeah. And what happened to Charlie Kirk brought me back to that day, and I just, I mean, I really feel for Erica Kirk and how horrible this has been for her and what that felt like for me on January 2011, what she went through. Now, in our case, Gabby survived. I mean, these kids, gonna spend their whole lives, they won't even, they're so young, they're probably not even gonna have memories of their dad. I mean, how awful is that?
21:45 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
21:46 Speaker 01 And Charlie Kirk and I didn't agree on hardly anything.
21:51 Pablo Torre? He was a constituent.
21:52 Speaker 01 He was a constituent, yep.
21:53 Pablo Torre? Arizona.
21:54 Speaker 01 And we've got, I would help him as a constituent and, and, um, but politically, we're like on different islands. But one thing I did agree with was his right to be there, talking about issues that he cared about. I would fight, I'd go to war for, to defend his right to do that.
22:17 Pablo Torre? And you lived your life in the service of that very, I would say, increasingly endangered premise as well. The thing that your wife was doing, by the way, for those who aren't familiar with just what she was up to.
22:33 Speaker 01 She was speaking to her constituents.
22:35 Pablo Torre? A series of meetings called Congress on Your Corner.
22:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, standing outside of a Safeway where people would line up to talk to her. Kind of similar to what Charlie Kirk was doing, smaller scale, but she was a member of Congress and just talking to people individually about what do they care about? And what problems do they have that she can help solve? She'd have staff members there to support, you know, this event and get people's information. And yeah, it's all, you know, it was about freedom of speech and listening to your constituents.
23:09 Pablo Torre? Yes, being accessible as a person working in American politics in the way that American politics was ultimately, I thought, designed to enable. And just the details on this, I mean, it was a point blank range.
23:25 Speaker 01 About this distance.
23:26 Pablo Torre? Yeah, this table, you and me, above her left eye, six people were killed by the gunman, including a US District Court Judge. The gunman used a semi-automatic pistol with a .33 round magazine.
23:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, Glock, same exact gun I flew in combat with. Glock 9mm, but a high-capacity magazine. So the gun with the magazine, it looks like a Uzi because the magazine sticks out the bottom of the pistol grip.
23:51 Pablo Torre? And had Gabby or Gabrielle, I guess?
23:55 Speaker 01 Yeah, I used to call her Gabrielle. And the way that changed was...
24:01 Speaker 12 As many of you are aware, earlier today, a number of people were shot in Tucson, Arizona.
24:08 Speaker 01 That day, President Obama goes to the podium in the White House.
24:14 Speaker 12 Gabby Giffords was...
24:15 Speaker 01 And says Gabby Giffords.
24:19 Speaker 01 Starts to say Gabrielle, he stops halfway and says Gabby Giffords. And then after that, everybody called her Gabby. So even I changed eventually.
24:26 Pablo Torre? So what you're saying is that the dude with the inset on the National Journal page.
24:29 Speaker 01 Right, changed her name.
24:31 Pablo Torre? Changed the name of the person with the big spread.
24:34 Speaker 01 Yes. Before that, I think the only, her mom and dad called her Gabby and her sister. Yeah, but almost everybody else called her Gabrielle. Like on her, on her signs, it was Gabrielle Giffords, her staff, and even me.
24:47 Pablo Torre? Well, the question of like how one and how one's identity is reoriented after something like this. The name being just one, of course, feature of the evolution here. But truly, like, the question of had this been contemplated, this possibility, an attempted political assassination? Had she thought about that prior to it happening?
25:11 Speaker 01 She was worried about it. There was an incident where a guy shows up at one of her events and rather agitated. Gun falls out of his waistband and falls on the floor. He was not intending to, to do anything, but it was rather startling that this guy brought a gun to her event. So she was starting to get worried. There were threats. This was also at a time where there were like heightened political tensions and we were divided. It was 2011, more than halfway through the first Obama administration. We had the, uh, the financial crisis in like 2008.
25:56 Speaker 01 We're kind of on the tail end of that, but we, we were rather divided politically. It's gotten worse since then. And I think Gabby was the first, as far as we could tell, the first female politician in our country that somebody tried to assassinate, like somebody in Congress. And it got a lot of, you know, a lot of attention. And six people died, including a nine-year-old girl, Christina Taylor Greene, who was born on nine eleven, two thousand and one. She would have been twenty-four years old. Uh, this, this month.
26:35 Speaker 01 And had like very high-minded ideas about service and democracy and just wanted to meet her congresswoman.
26:42 Pablo Torre? Right.
26:43 Speaker 01 It was just there to talk to Gabby.
26:45 Pablo Torre? Yes.
26:45 Speaker 01 We want them to care. We want them to show up. But I'll tell you what a good thing would be is to get people off the phones, you know, doing the politics on social media, the way, you know, it's just like a lot of bias. You get fed your own opinion. You don't really see the other side. And it seems like the algorithms just push us further and further.
27:10 Pablo Torre? No question. No question.
27:12 Speaker 01 So it'd be better to do it in person.
27:14 Pablo Torre? I do want to get to the premise of your wife survives. And the brain surgery, the piece of the skull, could you just explain?
27:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, so she got shot, you know, right above her eye, left side affects her right side of her body. So she's paralyzed. She can't really move her arm. She can move her right leg a little bit. She's got vision issues to the right. She still has like seven bullet fragments, you know, in her head. And they had to, because about the size of my hand, you know, the skull was damaged enough that they eventually had to replace it with a prosthetic skull. They did that, by the way, while I was in space, on the space shuttle. She had to have her final brain surgery on the day, actually, literally at the time, I was rendezvousing with the International Space Station.
28:05 Speaker 01 And as a commander of the space shuttle, you have to fly the space shuttle manually to the space station. You gotta get in front of it and then you gotta fly it within a couple inches of the space station. The accuracy, and you're both going at seventeen thousand five hundred miles an hour. Around the, around the earth. So that surgery happened while I was
28:27 Pablo Torre? Doing your own surgery.
28:29 Speaker 01 Doing that, yes. And then she was in the hospital for six months going through, you know, this extensive rehab. She still does rehab today.
28:38 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
28:38 Speaker 01 Fourteen years later, speech therapy and physical therapy and because you don't ever fully recover from that kind of injury, most people don't survive. I mean, thank God she survived.
28:49 Pablo Torre? Oh, it's shocking to go and for me to, again, I was aware of this generally, but not specifically researching this. And now I'm looking at what she had to overcome and it is insane.
29:02 Speaker 01 It's, it's kind of nuts.
29:03 Pablo Torre? Probably statistically.
29:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:04 Pablo Torre? It's insane.
29:05 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, ninety percent of people that have that kind of injury, ninety-five percent die. And most don't, you know, recover to a point where you can have like a decent quality of life and, and, and work and accomplish things.
29:20 Pablo Torre? Right.
29:21 Speaker 01 But she did because she's tough. I mean, she doesn't, she does not quit. She is not a quitter. She doesn't give up. She doesn't think a lot about what happened. It's not, not a lot of like, poor me. You know, this horrible thing happened to me. She's like, okay, this is the situation. She is a public servant at the highest level. It's one of, it's actually good for me, you know, she understands how hard this job is, serving in Congress, being in the US senate. And I've got like the most supportive spouse I think of any member of Congress. And it's because she's done the job. So she, she knows what it's like.
29:58 Pablo Torre? I was looking at the timeline to that point and, I mean, it was less than two years after she gets shot in the head and it's December 12th, 2012. It's Newtown, Connecticut. And of course, what we know is seared into our brains, if you pay any degree of attention, it's twenty children, between six and seven, six educators, the shooter's mother, the shooter himself, all of these people die, are killed. It's just over a year after Gabby, Gabrielle gets shot, she gives a speech and I want to play that speech and watch it together because I hadn't seen this before.
30:39 Speaker 13 For Democrats and Republicans, speaking is difficult, but I need to say something important.
30:54 Speaker 13 Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying. Too many children. We must do something.
31:15 Speaker 13 It will be hard. But the time is now. You must act.
31:26 Speaker 13 Be bold, be courageous. Americans are counting on you. Thank you.
31:39 Speaker 01 She can deliver the goods. I mean, powerful.
31:50 Pablo Torre? This message is brought to you by Apple Card. With Apple Card, you earn unlimited daily cash back on everyday purchases, like groceries, or merch, or tickets to the game. Plus, it can be used anywhere MasterCard is accepted. No matter your team, no matter where you shop, Apple Card is here to help you tackle game day. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.
32:23 Speaker 14 Hi, I'm Jenna Ushkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
32:38 Speaker 15 People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
32:49 Speaker 14 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.
32:54 Speaker 16 One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.
33:00 Speaker 14 So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.
33:20 Speaker 02 Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals. No kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.
33:59 Speaker 01 This is now the mission. This is the defining mission of your household. Yeah, mine and hers. Yeah. At the time, I mean, right after that, well, I think we already started an organization to focus on this issue of gun violence. Makes our country stand out in the worst of ways. No other developed country has this problem. England, France, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, none. It is uniquely an American problem. And I am a supporter of the Second Amendment. I mean, I have firearms. People have the right to defend themselves and our families. And if you want to have, if now, anyway, if you want to have a gun for hunting or target practice, if you're a responsible person, you should be allowed a firearm. Yes.
34:44 Speaker 01 But if you're a felon, if you're a domestic abuser, if you're dangerously mentally ill, of course, you shouldn't have a gun and it shouldn't be easy for you to get one. But the laws in our country make it easy for those people to get a gun. If you can't pass the background check, go to the gun show, where you don't have to do a background check or just buy one from your, from somebody you meet on the street. No background check required. These are ridiculous laws we have in this country. And that's what that was about. Yes. To try to convince, that was the Senate Judiciary Committee. Some of my colleagues today were in that meeting. I testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
35:29 Speaker 01 I'm probably one of the few people in the Senate that actually testified in front of the Senate as well.
35:35 Speaker 09 We aren't here as victims. We're speaking to you today as Americans.
35:40 Speaker 01 We're a lot like many of our fellow citizens following this debate about gun violence. We're moderates. Gabby was a Republican long before she was a Democrat. We're both gun owners and we take that right and the responsibilities that come with it very seriously. And we watch with horror when the news breaks to yet another tragic shooting. And we got close. We got some Republicans to vote on this Manchin Tumi background check bill to require background checks before you buy a gun. We also had some Democrats voted against it.
36:15 Pablo Torre? Yep.
36:16 Speaker 01 Still pissed off at those people.
36:17 Pablo Torre? Yeah. They're in that notebook too, I bet.
36:20 Speaker 01 Not this one. An old one. We got close. We did not get it across the finish line. But Gabby and I started an organization called Giffords and have been doing this as a mission for over a decade now and have made a lot of progress in states, like 750 pieces of legislation passed in over 30 states. And this is her, you know, mission clearly for like the rest of her life. She wants to save the lives of kids. Used to be in our country that, especially teenagers,
37:01 Speaker 01 the most likely reason they would die would be a car accident. Well, cars got safer and we changed laws and that has gone gradually down. Gun violence has gone up. Now the most likely reason, if you're a teenager in the United States or a kid, actually if you're a child in the United States, the most likely reason you are going to lose your life is you're going to get shot.
37:25 Pablo Torre? But then, universal background checks, as you alluded to, failed. Assault weapons ban, failed. High-capacity magazine ban, failed. And
37:34 Speaker 01 Federally.
37:35 Pablo Torre? Federally. Federally. Among the people who were there to listen and take stock of yet the latest tragedy that instructs them as to why this need not be a left or right thing. And it brings you invariably to 2020. We're going to skip over yet more mass shootings, yet more deaths, but to get to 2020 and it turns out that you're gonna You're gonna run for office.
38:04 Speaker 01 And that's why tonight, it's not about celebrating. Tonight is about getting to work. Now, some of you watching tonight did not vote for me. And that's okay. I'm gonna be your senator too. Yeah, I didn't want to. I would have much preferred Gabby being in the senate, and she would have been. And it would not have ever been a thing that I would have done. But it wasn't because of this issue that I did this. You know, it's part of it, and it's a problem I would really, really like to solve. I'll put it way at the top of the list. And I know how to solve it. It's less about the specific laws around firearms. It's about campaign finance reform.
38:49 Pablo Torre? Yes.
38:49 Speaker 01 That's how you fix this.
38:50 Pablo Torre? Oh, the whole notion.
38:51 Speaker 01 You fix that system.
38:52 Pablo Torre? Special interests.
38:53 Speaker 01 Yeah. Special interests are ruining this country.
38:56 Pablo Torre? Why isn't that more obvious to Americans? That this is a problem that is being exacerbated and funded by corporations?
39:05 Speaker 01 Whether it's the oil industry, the gun industry.
39:10 Speaker 01 We have a, just a system of injecting massive amounts of money into our political system to fund campaigns. Some of it comes from grassroots donors. That's a good thing. I think people should be able to support candidates. But when it's dark money, money you can't even track, that comes from corporations and people through things like 501(c)(4), we often think super PAC. Super PACs disclosed, 501(c)(4), social advocacy organizations, the money is often hidden, but also affects elections. I think people often run for office for the right reasons. They want to serve our country. They want to make change. Maybe it's a specific issue, maybe it's more broad.
39:56 Speaker 01 Then, once they get there, you see a lot of people think, well, the country will fall apart if I lose my job as a, you know, US House member. So I have to make decisions. This isn't me. I mean, I make decisions all the time. Probably not in the best interest of me in a further election. But you see people that make decisions based solely on whether or not they think it'll help them or hurt them in the next election. And that's where they go wrong.
40:21 Pablo Torre? And just because of psychology, I want to explain, you know, one of my favorite shows I'm watching lately is Andor, the Star Wars show. And basically it's about-
40:28 Speaker 01 I heard that's really good.
40:29 Pablo Torre? It's amazing. And it's basically the most accessible metaphor for American politics. It's not about politics explicitly, but it is about just how people make decisions to do fundamentally horrific things, but justify it to themselves.
40:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
40:44 Pablo Torre? And what you just established is what I've been thinking about as I watch television in both fictionalized and nonfictionalized forms, which is, there seems to be a theory that a lot of these politicians who are in the pocket of the NRA-
40:56 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
40:57 Pablo Torre? -that they have in which, if I'm not in this role, things will be worse. And therefore, all is permitted to get me to remain in power.
41:05 Speaker 01 100%. There's a bunch of them that thinks the country will fall apart if they lose their House seat or their Senate seat. Country's not going to be much different if they lose.
41:14 Pablo Torre? I was gonna say.
41:14 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:15 Pablo Torre? We're running the experiment of what it's like with you in it.
41:17 Speaker 01 So they're putting themselves before the country. You should never do that. The country should always come first. So you should always make decisions in these jobs based on what- and we might disagree. I mean, I'll disagree with some of my colleagues on what I think the best decision is-
41:32 Pablo Torre? Sure.
41:33 Speaker 01 -to build a better country. But it should be about the nation first, not themselves as an individual. But the one thing we should do is get the massive amount of money, especially corporate money, out of the political system.
41:47 Pablo Torre? Yeah, the whole question here-
41:48 Speaker 01 And then you fix not only this problem, you can fix a lot of other problems. You can fix the climate change problem.
41:53 Pablo Torre? But it just seems to me like, from a purely, what is in the middle of the Venn diagram between a lot of the rhetoric we're hearing from the right in its most philosophical form, and what the left says they want, is getting power back into the hands of actual Americans as opposed to- The engineered financial instruments that have been corrupting the country that we say we want to save. It just feels like it's popu-- it would be popular, Senator.
42:24 Speaker 01 I think it's popular. It's still hard to get done. And I talked to my, some of my Republican colleagues about this and they, they get it. They're like, you know, why do we have these big giant, you know, super PACs involved in all this? And I'm like, well, why don't we get rid of them? And they're like, well, it's complicated. I don't know if now's the right time. Oh, well, there's, some of them are not as bad as others. And nobody, not a lot of people want to hang it out there against big moneyed organizations.
42:56 Pablo Torre? Right.
42:57 Speaker 01 Yeah. I, I mean, I, I will. I mean, I, I wish we could have the vote tomorrow. Just abolish them.
43:03 Pablo Torre? Same. I'm looking at just the polling data, by the way, speaking to the mechanism of--
43:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, it probably doesn't poll well.
43:08 Pablo Torre? Oh, my God. And by, by the way, just on the question of, after Charlie Kirk's killing, this is a poll taken for the Desiree News, University of Utah. Thirty percent of Americans now support stricter gun laws, including 26% of American men.
43:24 Speaker 01 Only 30%? Are you sure that's right? That doesn't--
43:27 Pablo Torre? Have changed their minds.
43:28 Speaker 01 Oh, have changed their minds.
43:30 Pablo Torre? Stricter.
43:31 Speaker 01 There you go.
43:32 Pablo Torre? Yeah, have increased, have increased their desire to see stricter gun laws. Is it time to just pass the Charlie Kirk Gun Control Act? The cruel poetry of all of this is telling me is that here was a guy who said, quote, "It's worth a cost of some gun deaths to protect the Second Amendment." He said, quote, "If our money and our sporting events and our airplanes have armed guards, why don't our children?"
43:57 Speaker 01 Well, a lot of, a lot of schools do now because kids get shot in schools all the time. Wasn't like that when I was a kid. We worried in the 1970s and 80s about nuclear war, especially living in New Jersey. Think about that a lot. I was after the whole duck and cover thing.
44:18 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
44:18 Speaker 01 But then decades later, kids in school practice for mass shooters, walking through the front door with semi-automatic assault rifles.
44:28 Pablo Torre? Does that make kids safer?
44:30 Speaker 01 Having an armed guard?
44:31 Pablo Torre? Having an armed guard, doing these drills. I'm just wondering if the answer to this threat to our children is more weapons.
44:41 Speaker 01 Well, I would, I would say-
44:42 Pablo Torre? The good guys with a gun theory.
44:43 Speaker 01 I would, I would say in general, the good guy with the gun theory probably doesn't work well. Usually, from all the data shows, where there are more firearms, more people get shot and more people get killed. But I would say if you had the right security guard, well-trained, on the right day, and things happened a certain way, yeah, I think, you know, the right guy, retired cop who's like on top of things, could stop a really bad thing from happening.
45:12 Pablo Torre? Sure.
45:13 Speaker 01 It's unfortunate, we live in a world where there has to be security guards. And what are we gonna do? We're gonna put them everywhere?
45:20 Pablo Torre? Well, that's, that's where-
45:20 Speaker 01 Every football game, every place.
45:22 Pablo Torre? It's just the logical-
45:23 Speaker 01 And the whole good guy with the gun thing doesn't, like, the citizen carrying a firearm, gonna save, save the day, doesn't generally work really well because now you have, you get into any kind of conflict, if there's a gun involved, somebody often gets shot.
45:40 Pablo Torre? Well, it speaks to the larger, like, what's the pushback from those who are saying, "Hey, it's not even worth expending the political capital on these regulations that Senator Kelly is proposing because it's not gonna work."
45:54 Speaker 01 Well, if you could save one kid's life, and I could tell you that states that have stronger gun laws, fewer people get shot, fewer people die. You just have to look around the country. These numbers are published by-
46:08 Pablo Torre? There you go with your numbers-
46:09 Speaker 01 The numbers, the data. I mean, it varies a lot. If you could cut the death rate down by, you know, something like 80% if you strengthen your gun laws in a state. So that's why Giffords has been focused on that in the absence of being able to do strong federal legislation. But ultimately, I mean, if you really want to tackle this, it would be good to have universal background checks, red flag laws where somebody can say, hey, you know, my brother-in-law seems to have lost his mind lately and has a couple firearms. We should at least temporarily get those guns out of their hands. You see so many times when something like this happens,
46:51 Speaker 01 family members around the person knew. And they often say, well, I wish we could have done something about it.
47:09 Speaker 14 Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
47:24 Speaker 15 People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
47:35 Speaker 14 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.
47:40 Speaker 16 One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.
47:46 Speaker 14 So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.
48:06 Speaker 02 At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.
48:45 Pablo Torre? As I contemplate Utah State Legislature recently allowing for open and concealed carry without a permit on college campuses. And I'm looking at, of course, the Mauser 98 bolt-action rifle that was used by Charlie Kirk's killer. It was his grandfather's. I am left contemplating how what you experienced while watching the television on that jet and then seeing your wife survive was the most definitional, the most cinematic near-death experience that a politician working for our government can have. And I also now am wondering, you know, as an astronaut,
49:30 Pablo Torre? when you get so far up and you see how small we are, something happens to your almost literal perspective.
49:37 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
49:38 Pablo Torre? Can you explain just like how all of these perspectives that you've accumulated kind of like shape how you think about this?
49:45 Speaker 01 Well, I think for everybody, it might be a little bit different. I mean, for me, seeing the Earth as a round, let me say that again, round, for anybody who's doubting out there, round ball floating in the blackness of space, literally an island in our solar system. And we have no place else to go, right?
50:09 Speaker 01 You know Elon wants to go to Mars. I think it's a good idea to go to Mars. We're not living on Mars. Mars is a planet to live on.
50:15 Pablo Torre? Literally can't sustain life, I'm told.
50:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, think we got carbon dioxide problems? I mean, we have less than 1% carbon dioxide.
50:23 Pablo Torre? How many carbon credits do we need to offset Mars?
50:25 Speaker 01 You turn about over 98% carbon dioxide in that atmosphere.
50:29 Pablo Torre? Seems like a bad business.
50:30 Speaker 01 But you see this, this island in our solar system and we've, we've got no other place to go. And you look down and you don't see borders between countries. And you get this strong sense how we are all in this together. And then you look at the, like, how thin the atmosphere is. That's like a holy crap moment. That you're like looking, you're like, wow, it's like a, looks like a contact lens on an eyeball. Really thin. Think about this for a second. Runway at LaGuardia. It's probably 10, 12,000 feet long. If you put that up on its end, 10,000 feet is about half the atmosphere.
51:13 Speaker 01 Molecule wise, about half. It's like nothing. People look up and think, oh, we have this big giant thing that protects us from the vacuum of space and from solar radiation and gamma radiation. It's rather thin. And we don't do a very good job taking care of it.
51:33 Pablo Torre? It's hard, I imagine, to be an optimist, given that perspective in one way. And yet, everything I read about you and your wife and the mission you are on now demands optimism.
51:51 Speaker 01 Well, I'm also just inherently like an optimist, right? I, I'm a guy who flew four times on a rocket ship built by the lowest bidder.
52:06 Speaker 01 You gotta be an optimist to do that. Like, every time you climb in that thing, you're like, oh, man, I hope this goes well.
52:12 Pablo Torre? Where did they decide to save the money on this?
52:14 Speaker 01 Exactly.
52:15 Pablo Torre? This is what you're contemplating as you're rocketing into space.
52:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, right? I mean, should they have? Would it would have been better if they went for the guy that was gonna spend some more? The company that was gonna spend a little bit more money?
52:26 Pablo Torre? Right, is the incline of this chair the only savings that they chose here?
52:30 Speaker 01 No, I'm an optimist. And I think despite all of our problems and our political division and weak gun laws and violence in our country, I think the future of our country is really bright for a number of reasons. One is, you know, just think like culturally about if we stick with science and engineering, innovation, we've got the best innovators, the best inventors, the best scientists. Now, I'm unhappy this administration is not investing in science. That's temporary. I think we'll get back on track. I think AI is a great opportunity to grow the economy, create more jobs.
53:13 Speaker 01 You often, you know, think about people losing jobs, and that is a risk. I just released a plan on AI. You know, what do we need to do now to make sure we don't have massive job loss without a plan for what are people gonna do next? And the issues around, you know, the infrastructure that needs to be built so people's utility costs don't go up and electricity and water. But I think if we have the right plan, we can use this to solve a ton of problems in medicine and chemistry.
53:46 Pablo Torre? Right, well, just the idea of like what you're fundamentally talking about is something that's a through line in this, which is that there are things that are coming our way that we have a choice on how to confront. And what seems to be what science and data and evidence is suggesting is that we should look for a way to regulate. Such that the people who are the everyday voters of our country are not gonna get massively [bleeped].
54:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, left behind, yeah.
54:18 Pablo Torre? By the people who are gonna profit off of this in an unregulated economy, which is the story, by the way, of our country.
54:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, we wanna nudge this thing in the right direction where we can, our economy can benefit, but workers can benefit too. We can't leave middle-class and working-class people behind. If we leave them behind, we're screwed. If people don't have jobs, they don't have money, but if we do this in a way where we can, you know, help people and retrain them and maybe, you know, have some additional unemployment help to get them to their next career and we're thoughtful about it and we have a plan, I think we could get to a place where this could be a huge opportunity, you know, for us. And if we screw it up, China's gonna be ahead of us.
55:08 Pablo Torre? Sure.
55:09 Speaker 01 So I think we could screw it up, but I also think if we can do some smart things up front, this could be a win for everybody.
55:17 Pablo Torre? The metaphor I often return to is, are we gonna react to any number of these crises that confront us as if it is an asteroid about to hit our planet and we just throw our hands up and say, I guess this is just how it's gonna be? And only yesterday did I realize that this was a question that you have actually, in a literary form, contemplated. I'm not endorsing this, five-year-old Violet, though, is. That is the disclaimer and journalistically I must make. This is a book that you wrote. It is called "Moustronaut Saves the World," which I read this morning.
55:56 Pablo Torre? A rogue asteroid is hurtling towards the planet, and this crew of mice are called upon to serve their country and their species. And the thing I would like to point to is not even the illustration of the mice. I would like to flip, as we're going through, and just contemplate the depiction of the president.
56:19 Pablo Torre? Because I noticed something as I was doing my research into what did Senator Kelly used to look like? What did Gabrielle Giffords, what does she?
56:27 Speaker 01 You think she looks a little bit like Gabby?
56:30 Pablo Torre? I'm just saying.
56:31 Speaker 01 Just saying?
56:32 Pablo Torre? I'm just saying.
56:32 Speaker 01 Just a little, maybe?
56:34 Pablo Torre? Just a Madam President in this book suggests that there is an optimistic vision, not only for the role that our smallest among us might play, but truly in just a vision that I don't know if you demanded that, the President.
56:49 Speaker 01 Oh, I picked how the President was gonna look in that book.
56:52 Pablo Torre? I had a sense.
56:53 Speaker 01 Yeah?
56:53 Pablo Torre? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
56:55 Speaker 01 But this book is about, I mean fundamentally, it's about like, you know, using like, science to solve problems.
57:02 Pablo Torre? Yes, it is, it is, dare I say, for all ages, in a way that I have never been more depressed to proclaim.
57:08 Speaker 01 I've got another book idea about like, you know, teaching little kids the skills they would need to be an astronaut someday.
57:18 Pablo Torre? Which is all to say that you plan to immediately, as soon as possible, have America's children be more qualified than the people otherwise occupying the chambers that you currently are traveling in, in the Senate.
57:31 Speaker 01 That would, that would be, that would be a big win. You know, a lot of kids, I mean, you still hear the astronaut thing from little kids all the time.
57:40 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
57:40 Speaker 01 But you know what you also hear a lot from kids as they get older? That they want to be influencers.
57:46 Pablo Torre? Oh, God.
57:46 Speaker 01 Content creators.
57:48 Pablo Torre? As, as, as someone who resembles that career trajectory, if I may address briefly America's children with your endorsement, please go to [bleep] space. We don't need you here. We don't need you here doing, we, we have enough podcasters, dare I say, Senator.
58:09 Speaker 01 And read a book and stop the doom scrolling.
58:13 Pablo Torre? Yeah.
58:14 Speaker 01 That people do.
58:15 Pablo Torre? Except when it comes to this show, in which case you should like and subscribe.
58:19 Speaker 01 Right. And watch at every opportunity.
58:24 Pablo Torre? That is Senator Mark Kelly's words, not my own. Captain, Senator, mustache or not, this has been a pleasure.
58:31 Speaker 01 Been great, thank you. Thank you for having me on.
58:43 Pablo Torre? Pablo Torre Finds Out is produced by Walter Avaroma, Maxwell Carney, Ryan Cortez, Juan Galindo, Patrick Kim, Neely Lohman, Rob McCray, Matt Sullivan, Claire Taylor, and Chris Tumanello. Our studio engineering by RG Systems. Sound design by Andrew Bersick and NGW Post. Theme song, as always, by John Bravo. And we will talk to you next time.
59:17 Speaker 02 Network freedom and flexibility. That's what you want in a healthcare plan. With a Humana Medicare Advantage PPO plan, you can see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare, including specialists. No referrals. No kidding. Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to build Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.
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